Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 788: The Unscripted Journey of Steven Bernstein: From Cinematographer to Storyteller

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IFH 788: The Unscripted Journey of Steven Bernstein: From Cinematographer to Storyteller · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number seven
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.
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  Speaker 4: today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 3: That I have my next guest.
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  Speaker 5: He has been the director's cinematography for such films as
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  Speaker 5: Monster directed by Patti Jenkins, who just directed Wonder Woman,
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  Speaker 5: Kicking and Screaming directed by Noah Bomback, and Like Water
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  Speaker 5: for Chocolate. He's also been the director of cinematography for
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  Speaker 5: comedies like The Water Boy, Half Bake, Scary Movie Two
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  Speaker 5: White Chicks, and he's on action films like Swatt and
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  Speaker 5: He also wrote a film a textbook called Film Production,
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  Speaker 5: and his latest films, The Coding Andy Parker and Dominion
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  Speaker 5: have included actors like Aaron Paul, John Malkovich, Helen Hunt
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  Speaker 5: just to name a few. And currently he's actually teaching
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  Speaker 5: some really cool online and offline seminars, which again i'll
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  Speaker 5: link to in the show notes. We're going to talk
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  Speaker 5: about a lot of really cool stuff on this podcast episode.
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  Speaker 3: With guest Steven Bernstein.
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  Speaker 5: So, Stephen, just to get started, you know, you've done
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  Speaker 5: a lot of really amazing work.
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  Speaker 3: You've done a lot of work as a cinematographer.
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  Speaker 5: You know, starting in you know, the the late eighties,
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  Speaker 5: and you've done all these wonderful projects, and I wanted
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  Speaker 5: to ask how you got to that point. I mean
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  Speaker 5: that's sort of the the impetus to a lot of
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  Speaker 5: interviews and a lot of you know, people who've been
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  Speaker 5: able to really ascend up that that proverbial ladder is,
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  Speaker 5: you know, how did you get to that point?
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  Speaker 3: So what I want to ask you, Steve, is.
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  Speaker 5: Did you to just to sort of start this off,
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  Speaker 5: did you go to film school, you know, to be
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  Speaker 5: a cinematographer or did you do have a or did
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  Speaker 5: you have a completely different sort of entryway into this industry.
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  Speaker 6: A completely different entryway. I had wanted to be a
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  Speaker 6: writer and read or majored in philosophy at university. When
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  Speaker 6: I came out, there were various job opportunities of different types,
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  Speaker 6: one of which was at the BBC on a training program,
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  Speaker 6: which I enrolled in and studied there as a writer, director,
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  Speaker 6: researcher and worked in long form documentary. Great because it
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  Speaker 6: allowed me to travel a great deal, which was an
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  Speaker 6: interest of mine then, and I got to go to China,
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  Speaker 6: Hong Kong, Philippines, Vietnam, South America, South Africa during apartheid
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  Speaker 6: what was then Rhodesia later became Zimbabwe. So a lot
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  Speaker 6: of adventures, a lot of really interesting shoots and some
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  Speaker 6: great experiences, but not really that satisfying and not, as
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  Speaker 6: it turned out, my calling. I came back to London
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  Speaker 6: and continued working at the BBC, about the time that
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  Speaker 6: music videos became of interest. The first few music videos
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  Speaker 6: would be produced and I got to shoot a few
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  Speaker 6: of those, and soon I was in demand, not as
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  Speaker 6: a director or as a writer, but as a what
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  Speaker 6: was called then a lighting cameraman, a cinematographer and shot
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  Speaker 6: a lot of really interesting music videos for some really
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  Speaker 6: then very big bands in the in the eighties, Eurythmics
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  Speaker 6: and on, and that led to interest from others and
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  Speaker 6: got into commercials. Worked with the great Tony Kay, did
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  Speaker 6: some really important commercials with him, some of which won
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  Speaker 6: the Congolden Lion the d D Award, and then I
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  Speaker 6: was kind of on the map. Still my intention always
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  Speaker 6: had been to be a writer. So it's funny the
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  Speaker 6: way life works in that you tend to go with
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  Speaker 6: those things that are providing you income. Inevitably, you can
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  Speaker 6: have good intentions, but overheads life expenses being what they are,
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  Speaker 6: you do what you have to do. So I was shooting,
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  Speaker 6: enjoying it, particularly the music videos and the commercials, but
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  Speaker 6: I was still writing plays, films, short films, some of
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  Speaker 6: which appeared on Channel four in the UK, some got
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  Speaker 6: on the stage in London, but really nothing that provided
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  Speaker 6: me any sort of success. And then along came like
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  Speaker 6: Water for Chocolate. My friend Gabrielle Bearstein had been offered
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  Speaker 6: the work completing that movie, which had run into a
• 6:04
  Speaker 6: little bit of trouble, and he couldn't do it, so
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  Speaker 6: they asked me to go to Mexico and finish the film,
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  Speaker 6: which I did. It's a big hit in America, the
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  Speaker 6: highest foreign fiest grossing foreign language film of all time
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  Speaker 6: to date. And I then came to America to see
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  Speaker 6: if there was work to be had here, and that
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  Speaker 6: led to all those studio films as comedies with Adam Sandler,
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  Speaker 6: with the way Ins and so on, and that led
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  Speaker 6: to my meeting now the great Noah Bomback and starting
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  Speaker 6: an independent of films in America, and that in turn
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  Speaker 6: led to Monster. So I'm trying to compress what is
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  Speaker 6: now seeming a very long career into a very short
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  Speaker 6: period of time, but a happy series of accidents, doing
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  Speaker 6: what I never intended to do, ending up in a
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  Speaker 6: place I never intended to come to, and somehow work
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  Speaker 6: my way back towards my first intention.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, And it's funny how it all sort
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  Speaker 5: of comes for full circle.
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  Speaker 3: Right. You start off with one intention.
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  Speaker 5: If you find yourself in all these new situations, but
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  Speaker 5: you took advantage of those situations, and you know, you
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  Speaker 5: you turn them all into opportunities and now you're you know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: and now we're going You're going back to writing. And
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  Speaker 5: I think there's something poetic in that, because I think
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  Speaker 5: it's when when we as filmmakers and whether we're writers
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  Speaker 5: or directors, when we start our careers, you know, we
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  Speaker 5: have an idea of what it's gonna be.
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  Speaker 3: And usually everyone has an idea that it's gonna be.
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  Speaker 5: You know, you're gonna make a movie at twenty two,
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  Speaker 5: you're gonna win Sun Dance, You're gonna make a million dollars,
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  Speaker 5: and then you're gonna move to Hollywood and and and
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  Speaker 5: and you know, Steve, it.
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  Speaker 3: Doesn't really work out that way.
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  Speaker 5: It's a lot of zig zags towards that sort of path,
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  Speaker 5: and uh, you know, and it's just a That's why
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  Speaker 5: I do this podcast because there's so many interesting stories
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  Speaker 5: like yours where it's not just one way. In fact,
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  Speaker 5: with all these episodes, there so many different ways of
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  Speaker 5: doing things. But the point I'm trying to make is,
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  Speaker 5: you know, that's the thing about the intention that we
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  Speaker 5: have and how life sort of throws out all these
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  Speaker 5: obstacles and how we respond to them and how we
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  Speaker 5: how we respond to them really dictates, you know, what
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  Speaker 5: course our life is going to go on.
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  Speaker 6: I think you're absolutely right, and it goes to great
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  Speaker 6: complexity that that life offers us, which is do we
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  Speaker 6: earn a dollar, do we do what makes us the
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  Speaker 6: maxim amount of profit all the time, or do we
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  Speaker 6: hold on to an individual dream and simply wait it out.
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  Speaker 6: It's very interesting because I've done both. When I started,
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  Speaker 6: I make no apology to say that was kind of
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  Speaker 6: an opportunist. I was taking what was offered to me,
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  Speaker 6: and look, it was a fun ride. I got to
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  Speaker 6: again travel a lot, both first with the BBC and
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  Speaker 6: then doing music videos. I got to meet really interesting people,
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  Speaker 6: particularly in the eighties, and the bands that we were
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  Speaker 6: dealing with, and the concerts we were doing and the
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  Speaker 6: videos we doing all very very exciting. But really it
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  Speaker 6: was the work that was offered, and I took advantage
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  Speaker 6: of that. Later when I went to make my first film,
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  Speaker 6: A Decoding any Parker, I had seen other people try
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  Speaker 6: to make that same transition to director, and they tried
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  Speaker 6: to keep their day job, as it were, and none
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  Speaker 6: of them succeeded. So I resolved that I would give
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  Speaker 6: up everything to do with cinematography. I would give up
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  Speaker 6: anything to do that didn't directly point me towards directing,
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  Speaker 6: and that's what I did. And sadly decoding did not
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  Speaker 6: happen quickly. We were promised money, that money went away,
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  Speaker 6: We were promised other money. That money went away, And
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  Speaker 6: I spent nearly five years unemployed and went through all
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  Speaker 6: my savings and most of my possessions and was an
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  Speaker 6: abject poverty on the day we finally got funded and
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  Speaker 6: then went to shooting.
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  Speaker 4: Right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: back to the show.
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  Speaker 6: So both courses interesting. I think ultimately the latter one
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  Speaker 6: more painful. You sacrifice a great deal, but if you
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: hold out for the dream, maybe you achieve it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, holding out for the dream. It's
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  Speaker 3: kind of like Sid Hag.
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  Speaker 5: You know. He people once asked him about his acting
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  Speaker 5: career and he had actually given up.
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  Speaker 3: He actually, you know, sort of went.
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  Speaker 5: Away for a long while because he said every role
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  Speaker 5: that he was offered was basically he came in as
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: a man with a gun. He came in through the
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: door holding a gun, or he came in you know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: he was already in the room with the gun. And
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: what happened was he came back because you know, he
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: actually liked it. And finally he said, you know, I
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: realized now he's in movies with Tarantino and Robert and
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: Rob Zombie. And he said, you know, it's like Winston
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Churchill said, never quit, never quit, never quit.
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  Speaker 6: I think that's absolutely right. And there's a great example
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  Speaker 6: of this that we know. I mean Patty Jenkins, dear
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: friend of mine. Patty was the director of Monster, which
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: I shot. The story is interesting both how our relationship
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  Speaker 6: began and how Patty built her career. I was shooting
• 11:21
  Speaker 6: the big second unit on SWAT twenty one cameras, tons
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: of effects. We're spending millions of dollars, blowing up the
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: front of the library in Los Angeles, crashing planes, shooting
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: rockets into cars. It was everything I thought I dreamt
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: of when I was a young cinematographer. And then after
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: four months of that, I got a call from Clark Peterson,
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: the producer of Monster and known for years. The film
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: was in some trouble in Florida, and he asked if
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: I would read the script, speak to the first time director,
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: and consider leaving SWAT and come to Florida to shoot Monster.
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  Speaker 6: And I read the script. I thought it was great.
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  Speaker 6: I spoke to Patty on the phone and was struck
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: by her intelligence or sensitivity, her command of the subject
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  Speaker 6: matter and of herself. I just sensed that she would
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  Speaker 6: be a great leader and agreed and came down at
• 12:19
  Speaker 6: one twentieth of what I was getting paid on Swat
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  Speaker 6: arrived in Florida to this tiny little film that was underfunded,
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  Speaker 6: under equipped, and in real trouble, and we began working together,
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  Speaker 6: and for me it was a epiphany because I saw
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  Speaker 6: people of absolute and genuine integrity, completely believing in the
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: art they were undertaking to create. And Charlice was self
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: sacrificing and the role was agonizing and difficult for her,
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: but she pushed through, as did Patty and then of
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: course Monster. When we finished it and no one would
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: buy it, there's a lot of people don't know. Blockbuster
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: would be the only people that would put forward a
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: not very good offer, which was taken with the proviso
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: the film would get a very limited theatrical release, and
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: amazing to them and I guess to kind of everybody,
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  Speaker 6: the film got spectacular reviews in the papers. Patty ended up,
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  Speaker 6: along with charlease on Charlie Rose and then we went
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: to Berlin where they she at least won the Silver Lion,
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: then a silver bear rather than the Golden Globe, than
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: the Oscar, of course, and the rest is kind of legend.
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  Speaker 6: Right after that, Patty was offered pretty much everything from
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: studios and you, or I don't mean to speak for you,
• 13:44
  Speaker 6: Let's say someone.
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  Speaker 1: Like me.
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  Speaker 6: Would have taken that opportunity work on a studio, be
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: paid a million or two million. I don't know what
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: she's offered, but a lot. But Patty had a vision
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  Speaker 6: of what she wanted to do, and remarkably in this
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: to her character, she said, no, these aren't the films
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: that I want to do. She wanted to do a
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: film about Chuck Yeager. She had some other projects that
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: were interesting to her, and she was going to hold out,
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  Speaker 6: as I did on my film, for what she was
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: waiting for and what she believed she'd be adept at
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: doing and achieving, and waited and waited. Did some television pilots,
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: very successful ones, the Killing which she did a great
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: job on them. And then along came a wonder woman
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: and Patty said, yeah, here's a strong woman with a
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: voice that I find interesting, a subject matter that I've
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: always liked. I'm going to make this film. And what
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: did it do? This weekend? I mean it was spectacular.
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  Speaker 6: And it's not just the box office revenue we generated.
• 14:46
  Speaker 6: Look at the reviews it's getting. So that's Patty's remarkable.
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  Speaker 6: And I think in structural and structural journey.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 5: I once meant Kane Hotter and Kin actually said the
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: best action actress that he ever worked with was Charlie's
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: Stairon and he said she was not only was she
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: very nice to everybody with no airs whatsoever, but he
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: said when time came, she was absolutely amazing every single take,
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: every single day. He's like, she never did a bad take,
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: not one time. And when you see something like Monster, it's,
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: you know, because because Charlie's is a beautiful woman. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: then you know, she transformed herself with all they make
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: up and she really became that role.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: I had on a couple different acting coaches and they
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: said that was the secret of acting is that you
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: don't act like you're a person, you are that person.
• 15:41
  Speaker 7: I think that's spot on.
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: And you know, look, I have the remarkable distinction of
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: being the one cinematographer that managed to make Charlie's that
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: her own look bad. So it's very very special, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: I'm very proud of myself and Charlie's was very proud
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: of me, but she and I worked very hard on
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: making her look bad. That goes to her great courage,
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: because look, an actress's beauty is in part her commodity
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  Speaker 6: in Hollywood, and the fact that Charlie, like Patty before her,
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: had such an integrity of vision that she was willing
• 16:15
  Speaker 6: to sacrifice her commodity value in the pursuit of art
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: goes to the person that she is. And secondly, you're
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: absolutely right about the quality of Charlice's performance, and she
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: does this strange hybrid of method acting and more classical approaches.
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: She knows the material, she's always off page, she gets
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: it completely. She intellectually understands and engages with the topic
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: and knows her character and the character's art. But in
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: the moment, she is a method actor. She is completely
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: engaged and as your acting coach, a person that you
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: interviewed said she became that character. We believe she was
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: that person completely. You know, there's a remarkable thing that
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: happened on Monster one Day where it was a key
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: moment when Christina Ricci and Charlie Sterra and the two
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: characters were saying goodbye to each other at a train station,
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: and they both had worked their way into this emotional high.
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: There was a sense of intensity, and if you know
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: film sets, I'm sure you do. The crews, you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: just carry on eating their sandwiches and lying down their
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: track and doing what crews do. But something remarkable happened
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: this day, and the crew just sensed that they wanted
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: to support Christina and Charlie's and what they were pursuing.
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: So the crew decided, you know, latterly, not to speak
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: that day, and the crew was communicating with each other
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: with hand signals and with pointing and occasionally a whispered word,
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: but it was dead quiet on that set for the
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: entire sequence, and it was one of the most magical
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: moments I remember in any film I've ever worked on,
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: This sense of synergy of all of us working together
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: to support what we felt was the achievement of great Stuard,
• 18:07
  Speaker 6: and I think it facilitated those two performances in that
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: remarkable film.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, and see the stories like that are just
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: so interesting to hear. You know, she's working with different
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: actors over the years and seeing all the different methods
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: and different approaches and it's very interesting to see that
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: the crew, you know, responding in that method of the
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: crew responding and being very very receptive and helping Charley's
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: and Christina Ricci and doing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Something like that.
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: It's just very interesting to me when when because because
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: you mean, you've been you've seen a lot of said Steve,
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: where the crew ends up and the crew and the
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: cast they ends up becoming like a family because you're
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: spending you know, days into weeks and a months making
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: this film, and it almost becomes like a child for
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: everybody you know, and and and everyone's a team player,
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: and they all want to see, you know, what's best
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: for this project that they've worked for so long on.
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: I think you're exactly right.
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: And this is the thing I think that's most attractive
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: about film is you do acquire a family for a
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: few months or a few weeks or one of the
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: films I did in India for a year where you're
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: all under great pressure, but you're all mutually dependent on
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: each other and you're isolated from the rest of the world,
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: and you feel somehow special, not special as entitled, but
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: that somehow the way you are mediating the world is
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: different from the way you mediate the world in the
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: civilian or non film world. So the camaraderie and friendships
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: that are built on film sets to me are still singular,
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: and my closest friends all come from film, and the
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: most intense experiences in my life generally have occurred on
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: film sets. And I must tell you there's never been
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: a film that I've worked on.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: However bad the film I have been where it wasn't followed,
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: at least for me, by a profound depression that would
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: last days or weeks. And I think I speak for
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: virtually all film crews and actors. When you walk away
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: from your family and just say, Okay, this film's done.
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: I'm going back home now, home doesn't seem like home.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: The set was home, and there's a peculiar transition stage
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: which some people never get it over.
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: You know, you're absolutely right, Steve. I've been on a
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: lot of sets like that where it's almost you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: I don't want to use this expression, but I will.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: It's almost like a high. It's almost like this feeling,
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: this energy. Actually energy is a better word than I
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: it's his energy that you feel and you know, you
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: just sort of whenever, especially when everybody is gelling together
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: and everyone's there and they're professional and they're all working together,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: it's that, you know, you get that feeling and you
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: want to you know, and when you leave and the
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: project's over, you sort of go home and you're like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: what am I going to do now? I guess I
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: better watch Netflix and you know, order a pizza.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Right, It's like, but you want that feeling again so much.
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: No, absolutely, right to the point where it's like a
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: maybe high is better because you're like an attic. You'll
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: be walking down the street and you'll you'll see another
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: film shooting and sort of wander over thinking that you
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: might be able to pick up on some of that energy.
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: Maybe they'll invite you to lunch. But it's it's something
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: that you that you absolutely miss when you're.
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: Not doing it.
• 21:35
  Speaker 6: And listen, that's one of the problems I have when
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: I moved from cinematographer to writer, director and producers that
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: when I was a cinematographer, I would be doing sometimes
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: two features, sometimes even three a year. I'd be working
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: all the time, and I'd be on those film sets
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: with my with my friends, with my with my film
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: friend family. When you're a director, when you're a writer,
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: in particular, you're locked in a room, you know, with
• 22:01
  Speaker 6: a computer or with a fountain pen and no friends
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: at all, just writing and writing and writing, and it's
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: not as much fun. I'm down with the Dorothy Parker
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: who said I love having written, I hate writing. Well,
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: that's that's kind of my view. I'm very proud of
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: my last script, in particular, Dominion, the one with John Malkovich,
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: and I'm very proud of to Cody, Andy Parker and
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: the next one coming up. But still, the process of
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: creating those stories, those scripts very very hard and very lonely.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: It is a very lonely process.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: And you know, I wanted to ask Steve, you know,
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: when you've, you know, worked all these years as an
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: accomplished cinematographer, you and you go back to your first love,
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: which was writing. As odd as this question sounds, was
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: there any skills that translated? Because I think there was,
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: And here's the one one skill I think that really
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: translated well, was you You will obviously lensing all these
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: wonderful films and like like Monster, you know how that
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: you you know, have a you have that image in
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: your mind, You have that that sort of mind's I
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: where you're saying, Okay, I can imagine you know, we're
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: opening up on this mountain range, or I imagine we're
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: opening up on this sort of dark night and we
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: can barely see. I imagine that helps a lot with
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: your exposition when you're writing scripts, because when you're writing, uh,
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: you know this, these action lines, I imagine they're they're very
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: very well told because obviously you know exactly what it's
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: going to look like, because hey, you're a cinematographer, you know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: and you can bring all those years of imagery and
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: seeing all these different things to your script.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Am I right?
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: Or am I? Or am I completely off base?
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: Do you know?
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: You're your your you're spot on?
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: And and and go to the very essence of my
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: philosophy and understanding of film. What I discovered, both from
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: first my reading when I was a student of philosophy
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: and later as a and then as a cinematographer, is
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: that everything to do with film is a language, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: we have to understand what a language is. A language
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: is inevitably made up of two parts that which we
• 24:13
  Speaker 6: intend to mean and that which we present to create
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: that meaning or with I think the philosopher's called the
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: signifier that which the audience sees, and the signified that
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: which we mean, the idea that.
• 24:26
  Speaker 7: We're trying to present.
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: As a cinematographer, you realize that when you compose a
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: shot in a particular way, you can create a certain
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: feeling in an audience. You can even suggest an idea.
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: When you push a camera forward on a dolly, for example,
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: into a face, you're saying to an audience, Hey, what
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: this character is about to say or do is important.
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: That's not in a script. But the camera movement is
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: the signifier. The idea of importance is the signified. And
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: then I began analyzing everything I did as a cinematographer
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: as a language. If I light with a backlight, that's
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: the signifier. It's backlight signified. Mystery or uncertainty. An asymmetrical
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: composition that is the signifier. The signified. Possibly a character
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: who's alienated, or a film like Wait until Dark, a
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: character who's at risk.
• 25:19
  Speaker 7: To edit a shot.
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: Where you do an extreme close up and go to
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: a very wide shot David Lean might have done, you're saying, oh,
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: here's a person in a small and a landscape. That's
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: the signifier. The signify is the insignificance of the human
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: condition perhaps or the weakness of that individual at that moment.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: So when I realize all those things, I realize that
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: everything I put in a written script is again a
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: matter of what I signify and what it means, how
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: it is indicated, and ultimately what I'm trying to convey
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: to an audience. But I also realize that not everything
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: can be done with the spoken word. That sometimes the
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: most powerful, although the most pneumatic, elements, are not written,
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: but implied with the photographic image. So as I write,
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: I'm always thinking, is it better for the character to
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: say this, or is it better to have the character
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: say very little and imply something simply with a composition
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: or a camera movement, or perhaps with the music or
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: with the rhythm of the editing. If I begin to
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: look at film as I suggest everybody does, as a
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: series of integrated languages, each with their own set of
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: signifiers and each signifying different things, then I don't feel
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: an obligation to put everything into a dialogue, and the
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: dialogue become more economical and more real, and the medium
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: as a whole, integrating all these different processes becomes more effective.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: Does that make sense, Oh, it makes perfect sense. You know,
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: as you were describing your process, I was reminded of
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: there will be blood, and there will be blood. The
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: first twenty minutes, you know, there's no there's no dialogue whatsoever.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: It's a lot of imagery. It's a lot of you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: we see Daniel plain View as he's coming down into
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: that into that pit looking for gold.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: He doesn't find gold.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: However, he finds oil and that becomes as it becomes
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: that oil baron, oil tycoon, sociopathic businessman.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: But that first twenty minutes there's absolutely no dialogue.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: And when I first saw that movie, I was like, Wow,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: this is a really bold choice because I mean, I imagine the.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Pitch meeting for that.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: If you say, if you're a pitch meeting on the
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: first twenty minutes, there's no dialogue whatsoever.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's just kind of you know it.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: But but you know, once you start getting into the movie,
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: it's I mean, I thought it was absolutely phenomenal, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: I mean the only reason it lost Best Picture was
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: because it was up against the No Country for Old
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: Men and you know I, which is another movie very
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: heavy in imagery.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Have you have you seen either of those movies, Stephen.
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: I've seen them both and loved them both.
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: And I would throw into the mix Terry mallix film
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: Days of Heaven, which was the film I think that
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: inspired me more than any other to be a cinematographer.
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: You know Meleix character's relationship to nature and nature being
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: indifferent and again the visceral effect that nature's power, sublime,
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: majesty and indifference to us as living, breathing souls is important.
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: So in a Terry Malick film, all the time, he's
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: cutting away to shots of nature. Again, as you say,
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: if a pitch meeting or a description to some investor,
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: you're saying, well, a lot of these shots won't have
• 28:36
  Speaker 6: any obvious meaning or won't advance the story to the
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: next plot point, but it'll be laden with meaning. It
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: will make us understand how indifferent nature and a god
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: or an absent god is to us, and how that
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: should make us potentially feel. And he does that almost
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: exclusively in Days of Heaven with images, not with a dialogue.
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: He is combining languages. My feeling is that as a
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: writer and as a director, you don't write your film
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: in spoken language exclusively. You write your film in five
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: different languages like a very skilled linguist, and you combine
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: those together to create meanings and choosing which language to
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: use based on which is most effective and which goes
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: to your audience's sensibilities.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know that's very true because you know, as
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: I've been, because I my first love is writing as well,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: and when when I'm writing a screenplay, there's so many
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: different pairs of eyes to sort of look at it through.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: You know, there's an editor's eyes, there's there's you know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: the director's eyes. Sometimes you're thinking even in terms of
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: being a producer, you know what I mean, and you're
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: you're thinking of all these different of different ways. And
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: then but when you're adding all these layers into your
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: actual writing, you know, you're you're really you know.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: Because you're trying to sort of hook the reader, as
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: they say, you know, hook the reader in the first
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: couple of pages, but you have to hook.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Them throughout the whole story.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: You're trying to always, you know, keep that tension in
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: there you're trying to figure know, you're sort of, you know,
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: wearing a lot of different hats, You're doing a lot
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: of different things at the micro and the macro levels.
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: You're right, and it's very very hard, particular when we
• 30:27
  Speaker 6: start talking about producing, because you know, the person or
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: persons who may determine whether your film gets made may
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: have never made a film and may have no understanding
• 30:39
  Speaker 6: of cinematic language, of what composition does camera movement, may
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: not have seen a Terry Maylick film, may not have
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: seen Paul Thomas Anderson film, may not have seen a
• 30:49
  Speaker 6: Coen Brothers film. They may have read McKee's book on
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: story and take that template and apply it to your script,
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: and if your script does not use that template, they
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: may feel that your script is a failed one. And
• 31:06
  Speaker 6: this is difficult for all writers and all artists to determine.
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: Do you do what the orthodoxy in our film community
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: suggests or giving you a better chance of getting your
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: film made, or do you protect your singular vision, be
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: it part of that orthodoxy or not, in the belief
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: that you know better how best to express the ideas
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: you hope to express. It's interesting because, unlike other art
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: forms ours is so very expensive that there is a
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: inhibiting element, and that's the one of finance. People backing
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: a film want to know their investment is safe, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: therefore are looking for absolute metrics to determine what will
• 31:57
  Speaker 6: make your film a good investment for them. They're not
• 32:00
  Speaker 6: interested in your ideas about how to engage an audience
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: viscerally with a composition. They want to know that if
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: the rules of which they may be aware are applied,
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: does that mean your film will succeed? And if it will,
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: will they make more money? And that's a very difficult
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: way to approach filmmaking.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: I have a friend of mine, you know, he and
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: I were just discussing this as well, because you know,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: he was a part of a film. The film was already,
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: everything was casted, they were about to shoot, and then
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: suddenly it just all went away. And he said, Dave,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: it's happened too many times in my career at account
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: and he says, it just you know, it happens sometimes
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: where you know, the money goes away. And then there's
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: been other times where he's been pitching a project for
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: years and years and years and it's finally you get
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: a financier and you're able to finally find that money.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: I casin ovis on this podcast and he was discussing
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: how he found the money for Dallas Buyers Club, and
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: you know, it was just one of those things where
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: he had a connection from years ago who was willing
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: to help him out out of a bind. And it was,
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: you know, one of those cases where your network really
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: is your net worth.
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: No question.
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: I mean, you've got to build relationships and contacts, and
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: then you've got to convince people to give you their
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: money to make your film. And again there's a natural
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: conservative factor in all that, and that they don't want
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: you to take a lot of risks because they don't
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: know that that will generate money for them necessarily. I mean,
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: we all want the investor says, just go ahead and
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: make what you believe, but those are rare. Most investors
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: want to get involved and say, okay, we're giving you
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: this money. What's our best way of guaranteeing this? Are
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: you definitely going to have three acts? And are your
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: plot points going to come on the right pages and
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: all the rest of it. And again that may or
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: may not be the best way to write a script,
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: but that's what they want because that's what they've been
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: told is the way to success, and that, as I say,
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: it could be very inhibiting for a writer.
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: For creative artists.
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: I'm sure that Terry Maylick doesn't work to that template,
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: you know. I'm sure Charlie Coffin doesn't work at that template.
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure that the Coen Brothers don't. And there's
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: some of the most successful and important filmmakers we have working.
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: So these are some of the tough decisions that filmmakers
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: have to make, particularly when you go to financi your
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: film because you want that money, but you also want
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: to make a great movie.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, absolutely, And I you know, when we
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: when writing is my first love as well, and when
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: we're writing these scripts sometimes there's a tendency to write
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: with that producer's hat because you're wondering, oh, would this
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: be able to be you know, will this be too
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: much money? Will I be able to even obtain this
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: you know stuff? You know, And that's sort of as
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: I find writing the first drafts. We have to kind
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: of sort of brush that aside and just sort of
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: focus on just telling the best single story possible that
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: we can tell. And then later on when you're maybe
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: doing rewrites, you're in different meetings and you can sort
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: of take things out and maybe add things in, and
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: then sort of, you know, the story sort of evolves
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: and it kind of ties in with what we were
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: talking about before, where you know, we set off in
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: the beginning with these expectations that's going to go into
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: a straight line, and then suddenly it's zigzagging all over
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: the map and we're, you know, we're you know, finding
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: these obstacles, and we're trying to turn these obstacles into
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: either they can either set us back or we can
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: move forward with them.
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: You make a great point, and I always try to
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: write my first draft in seven days or less. And
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: there's a reason for that. I call it a slop draft,
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: not a first draft, because what I want to do
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: is write so quickly that I don't have time to think.
• 35:42
  Speaker 6: So first, there's the idea of just an intuitive understanding
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: of character, but also I find that I write to
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: know what I think, that if I try to outline
• 35:54
  Speaker 6: before I begin writing, the ideas are only are only notional.
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: I really don't know my characters, I don't know my
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: story that well. I think I do, and I can
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: try to plot it out, and I can draw all
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: sorts of diagrams and put all sorts of index cards up,
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: but it's not really fully realized. Then if I take
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: a different approach and simply start writing and say I'm
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: gonna write one hundred and twenty pages in seven days,
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: what I discover is that by the time I get
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: to that last page, I have developed an understanding of character,
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: I have developed an understanding of what the narrative should be,
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: and I might even understand some of the subtexts.
• 36:32
  Speaker 7: Then I go back.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: And I begin the real process of writing, which is rewriting.
• 36:37
  Speaker 6: But I couldn't have done that if I tried to
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: make that first draft perfect. And you talked about whearing
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: your producer's hat, I think it's essential, and I think
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: you've made a very good point that when you're writing,
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: you're thinking of nothing except those characters. I don't care
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: how long a dialogue scene goes on for, or how
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: outrageous what the characters say are, or or if they
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: begin in a pristian fashion talking about things that have
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: nothing to do with the story at all, because in fact,
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: that's what people do in real life, is talk about
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: things that don't necessarily have to do with the advancement
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: of their individual plot. And then when you write that version,
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: that slop version, and look at it. To me, it
• 37:15
  Speaker 6: is the door to all things. You come to an
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: understanding of everything that's important about your film, and then
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: you can put those things, those things in when you
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: go back to to rewrite. It's a crazy way of writing,
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: but it works very well for me.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, I actually think that's a very good
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: way of writing because even when I have, you know,
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: started writing stuff in the past, and even now, sometimes
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: when I sit down to start writing, one of two
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: things happens. Number one is you get distracted very easily.
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: I think as this happens to everybody where you know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: your phone chimes or somebody at your door, your friend
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: calls you and says, hey, Steve, can you help me move?
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: I have to you know, can you take me to
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: the airport?
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: And the second thing is you have paralysis through analysis
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: where you're sitting at your desk, you know, or wherever
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: you're writing, and suddenly you're just kind of like, oh,
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: wouldn't it be cool if and you start brainstorming and
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: you're just basically you're just spinning your wheels, so to speak.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: No, exactly right, and I think this is to me
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: it was a breakthrough.
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: I was so concerned with failing that I was preventing
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: myself from succeeding. So when I was convinced ultimately that
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: I should write badly, I sat down and wrote the
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: worst script I possibly could, And when I was finished,
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: it was truly terrible, but it pointed the way to
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: a much better script, a script that was so good.
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: This is what I did with Dominion that when I
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: sent it to John Malcovich, he signed up immediately, and
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: it was a low budget film, but John loved the
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: writing of that script because the dialogue seemed so natural
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: and so imaginative to him. If I had written Dominion
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: and to an outline, my characters would have been speaking
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: to deliver the next plot point, to get to the
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: next subject, to keep the story moving along as it
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: had been outlined. But the way I wrote Dominion was
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: I simply had my characters talk about things that are
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: important to them and then went back on the next
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: draft and then imposed a form on that, and it
• 39:22
  Speaker 6: was much more natural. The writing was much better, and
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: it's a system that simply works. I say to all writers,
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: and I have a lot of assistants that work with me,
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: don't try to be perfect on the first draft, or
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: Simply write as quickly as you possibly can and then
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: discover what you always meant to say and never realize it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:47
  Speaker 5: I like that approach, Steve, where you know you gave
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: yourself permission to fail and you basically said, I'm going
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: to write the worst possible thing.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: You know. I was talking to another colleague of mine,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Jason Brubaker.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: now back to the show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: And he has had a theory about you know, guys
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: who always talk about making a film, They always you know,
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: and you've met guys like this to Steve, where they're
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: always saying things like, oh, I have this great idea
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: for a film, you know, me and my buddies, blah
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: blah blah, but they never actually make it.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: The and his theory, Jason's theory, was that the reason.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: They don't make it is because if it does suck,
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: if it is bad, it's a reflection of them as
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: an artist, and it kind of encompasses their entire career
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: in sort of one foul swoop. So if they do
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: write a bad screenplay or make one bad movie, well
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: you suck.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: You're never going to make anything. Do you know what
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: Steve?
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: I know exactly what you mean. And I've just just
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: a majority of people, not just in film, but in life.
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: Most people would rather talk about something than do it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: Most people would rather criticize others than do it. Those
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: who criticize and don't do are always safe because they
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: can't possibly fail and can always make clear how superior
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: they are because they can criticize that which you did.
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: Look when I made Dominion, a lot of people said, oh, well, Steven,
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: you had trouble finishing it. There was some money issues,
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: et cetera, all of which were true, and those were resolved.
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: But the thing is I did it. Had I simply
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: not done it and watched others, I don't know if
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: I would have the sense of self that I have.
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: I'm proud of what I've done. I've done it because
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: I've taken risks. But you go to a very important point.
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: If you want to make films, you have to make films,
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: and if you're going to do that. It means you're
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: going to take risks. It means people are going to
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: criticize and ridicule you, and you may even fail. But
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: I'd much rather do and fail than observe and criticize others.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that is beautiful, Steve, because honestly, that is
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: so true, you know, And I think we all have
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: somebody in our lives where we've known somebody that like
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: that in our lives, where they don't want to actually
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: do anything. They may talk a big game, or they
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: constantly criticize what other people are doing and kind of
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: like downplay it, you know, in that sort of condescending,
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: sort of very almost like jaded type of attitude where
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: they're like, oh, yeah, that you're gonna make a.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Movie this weekend. That's cool, you know what I mean?
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: And they just like they and people like that, you know,
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: if they never do anything, they're always just sort of
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: criticizing others from the comfort of their couch, you know.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: What I mean.
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: You know what I mean, I completely know what you
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: made and I look, I pay tribute to anyone who
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: takes a risk in their life of any kind. It
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: doesn't mean that you shouldn't sometimes be safe. But you only,
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: I think, have one life. You only have a few opportunities,
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: and when they're presented to you seize them. I know
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: when we started Decoding any Parker, we had spent a
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: long time raising the money and I got a little
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: bit of money from India, some from Canada. I was
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: very lucky and got the tax cred in California and
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: we were very very close, within like one hundred thousand
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: dollars what we needed, and the producers all got on
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: the phone with each other and we had to decide
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: what to do. And at that point Helen Hunt had
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: read the script and loved it and had signed up
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: for a very reasonable sum of money. We had Samantha
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: Morton Helen of course one in Oscar Samoth been nominated
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: for two. I had met Aaron Paul and we had
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: become fast friends, and Aaron Paul, who was at the
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: height of his fame with Breaking Bad, had agreed to
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: do it. Corey Stall and I had gotten closed as
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: he had read the script and we talked about the
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: evolution of the characters. Rashida Jones, Bradley Whitford, just this
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: incredible cast we put together and we were on the
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: phone considering whether we should pull the plug because we
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: didn't have quite enough money, and I ultimately decided that
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: we would go ahead, and I realized it was a
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: huge risk, and we nearly had to shut down. I
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: think we did shut down for day at the end
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: of a week, and then we went and raised more
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: money and we managed to finish. The film went on
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: to win the Slowan Award, the Hampton's and won Best
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: Actress for Samantha Morton at Seattle, won the Milan Film
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: Festival two or three awards. There raised a couple of
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: million dollars for charities, et cetera. We pulled it off,
• 44:28
  Speaker 6: but there was a moment in that process where we
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: had to decide whether to play it safe or to
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: take a considerable risk. And I think those moments come
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: often in film, because I think it was Hitchcock the
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: one said that drama is a life with the boring
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: bits taken out. I would suggest that filmmaking is life
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: with the combits taken out. So it's a constant state
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: of risk and near hysteria and certain failure, and from
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: that you extract, hopefully a film and a bit of
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: a life.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: And you know, as you talk about your projects.
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: You know, I wanted to ask, you know, when you
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: started to actually go from that cinematographer's sort of chair,
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: so to speak, to being a director.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: You know, what were some of the things that you've
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: picked up?
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, because you've you've had a lot of really
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: cool directors, like Patty being the first example that I
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: can think of. You know, what were some of the
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: things that you saw that these directors were doing when
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: they were talking to actors or maybe even talking to
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: you as a cinematographer, you know, and talking about you know,
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: a shot list and here and hey, Steven, here's my storyboard.
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: You know what are some of the great things that
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: they have done over the years that you sort of
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: took into your projects.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: Well, it wasn't just Patty.
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: Was John Favreau. I worked with a couple of times.
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: John and I are friends. Noah Bombback, of course, I
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: did three films with Noah Bomback, which was fantastic. So
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: I had an opportunity to work with lots of Taylor
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: Hackford of course, I mean, lots of other great directors,
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: and I took something of value from each of them. Certainly,
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: always grateful to my training at the BBC and always
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: grateful to all my stage actors.
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: And what I learned there.
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: But I learned as I observed about different management systems,
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: different leadership methodologies, and different ways of working with actors
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: and with cruise.
• 46:24
  Speaker 7: Noah and I.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: Before we did both Kicking and Screaming and Mister Jealousy
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: and Highball, spent a lot of time prepping. We were
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: in Noah's place in Greenwich Village and we would go
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: through the entire script seen by seeing shot by shot,
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: determining not only what we planned to shoot, but why
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: we're shooting, what the camera would mean. Going back to
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: what I was saying before about Signifier and signified he
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: was a walide shot or close shot. Noah would show
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: me clips from movies that he liked and said, this
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: is very important to me. Could we infuse this sequence
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: with the same feeling from this film. I remember on
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: Mister Jealousy he'd been much influenced by the French.
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: Nuvolvog, so we were using those kind.
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: Of circular fade outs, and even the music that he
• 47:15
  Speaker 6: chose was very much in that style, but also compositionally,
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: the way the camera moved and the way I lit
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: it all had to be in the style of the
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: new Volvog, so that was exciting. That's what's so great
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: about a collaborator like Noah is that he had a
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: very clearly determined vision of not only what his characters were,
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: but stylistically what he wanted to do. And that would
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: be a great starting place for me to then run
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: with some of my own ideas and I bring him
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: books from painters, or from designers, or from other filmmakers
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: photographers with that period. So what about this, What if
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: we did this like this and so on? We would
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: integrate some of my ideas into his vision. Patty, I
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: think I told you about her, or focus very much
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: on actors. How Patty, at the end of every performance,
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: rather than speaking to any of the crew, would drop
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: the headphones and make a beeline directly for the actor.
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: It doesn't matter what anyone else had to say to her.
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: Her first point of contact after a take was those
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: actors to tell them that they had been observed, that
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: they're being protected, that someone is listening. Because that's what
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: actors want most of all, is to know the actor.
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: Be an experienced director or an experienced director, those actors
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: want to know that there's someone watching protecting them, creating
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: a rarefied safe environment where someone's making sure that their
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: performance is okay and will tell them honestly if it isn't.
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: And Patty really did that to a great degree. John Favreau,
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: it was the atmosphere on set. It's kind of like
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: he felt strongly that what happens on set somehow appears
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: on screen. So were fun and light, full of energy,
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: full of comedy, and a very very gentle hand that
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: everyone felt protected and facilitated, And again that lent itself
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: to what appeared on screen. Taylor Hackford very very well
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: prepared and would cover things from every possible angle, knowing
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: that whatever he planned, he knew that he might alter
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: it in the cutting room and wanted to make sure
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: that he had plenty of material to cut that with.
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: So for me, thirty years of observing some of the
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: best directors in the world was a wonderful education for
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: me and it informs everything I do now. But was
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: even better educationally was watching some truly terrible directors get
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: it wrong. And I got to watch that as well,
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: and I'm not going to mention their names, but it
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: helped me to know what not to do.
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: and now back to the show.
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: So to accumulate all that knowledge and to be able
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: to walk onto the first feature that I directed, knowing
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: what these great directors had done and what the bad
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: directors had done and what I should or shouldn't do,
• 50:24
  Speaker 6: was a huge help to me.
• 50:26
  Speaker 7: It still is.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: And you mentioned this too, Steven.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: You have thirty years of experience, you know you have
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: you know, started as a writer, you became this accomplished cinematographer.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: You've won this just plethora of awards. You got to
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: see all these great sort of you know, all these
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: great directors and all the things that they did right
• 50:46
  Speaker 5: and and sort of put this all together for your
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: own projects. But I know now you're you're also doing
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: some seminars which you know you're going to impart all
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: this knowledge, which I think is phenomenal. So could you
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: just you know, talk a little bit about some of
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: the seminars you have coming up?
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: Absolutely for years, really starting back to write about the
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: time about the BBC, I began teaching if somebody was
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: a writer and wanted to know something about cinematography, because
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: I had done both those things. I was uniquely able
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: to explain in a plane language for a writer or
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: director what a cinematographer does. And then later when I
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: began directing, I could go into great detail to people
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: about what each below the line crew member did, and
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: when I was producing, I could explain to the investors
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: why we needed money for different things, what the post
• 51:43
  Speaker 6: production crew would be doing, what the on set crew
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: would be doing, why we needed as many makeup people
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: as we needed, and so on. So I was always teaching,
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: and sometimes formally I taught at the International Film School
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: in London, I had a film school of my own,
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: and in the UK in London, I set a film
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: school up in New Brunswick. In Canada, I've taught at
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: universities including USC here and others all around the country.
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: And I wrote a book about film production that covers
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: all these things. And then finally I just thought, you know,
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: I should formalize this and make it available to a
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: lot more people than I've made it available to in
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: the past. So we're taking right now. Six of my
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: most popular lectures went on making the independent film, how
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: you actually put together independent film, how you find the money,
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: how you use that money to shoot the film, how
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: you take it through posts and get into sales and distribution.
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: Another one about for stills photographers, because so many stills
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: photographers have come to me and saying, hey, I want
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: to be a cinematographer. I've bought this camera, I've done
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: stills work. But how is cinematography different from photography and
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: particularly with lighting? So I've done that so many and
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: producers want to know about cinematography, how it works. So
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: I've running a course on cinematography for non cinematographers. And
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: so many actors I've worked with, both on stage and
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: on screen, feel uncomfortable when they first step onto a
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: film set, and I wanted to run a seminar so
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: that actors would know what it's like to come onto
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: a film set and what the assistant directors do, what
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: the first assistant directors do, what the director wants, what
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: the cinematographer wants, so all those things very useful for them.
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: And then going back to something you and I've talked
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: about a lot in this discussion is I wanted very
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: much to run a course for writers so they would
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: understand the technical aspects of filmmaking and they could employ
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: that in their writing to make them better screenwriters. So yeah,
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: we set that up. We've got a website called somebody
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: studios dot com. You can see all the seminars there.
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: People can sign up. I think that they from the
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: time they sign up, they've got a month to watch
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: the individual seminar they've selected, or they can sign up
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: for multiple ones. And the course has been very successful
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: in the past. Not only do I teach the course,
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: but then afterwards I have a Q and A and
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: we keep the lines open and we make sure people
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: have access to me in the future for advice. I
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: want to help others as I've been helped over all
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: these many years, and I really very much looking forward
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: to it. July the fifteenth we go live with everything,
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: so we're getting very close to that date. So I
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: hope people go to the website, picks on the off
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: for themselves and see what they might be able to learn.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: And I will also link to your seminars in the
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: show notes, you know, as well as any other site
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: you have, Steven, And it's just you know great too,
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: because it's something that I've learned over the years.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: Whenever I'm going to take a.
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: Seminar or a webinar, or or read a book or
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: like a filmmaking book. One thing I always my my,
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: my one sort of barrier to entry to reading it
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: or buying it is the person has had to have
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: some kind of experience. I think you've also seen it, Stephen,
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: where you sort of see a book in the in
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: maybe in a Barnes and Nobles or on Amazon, and
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: you and you see that they're you know, the person
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: that wrote it has never written a screenplay or never
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: actually made it, made a film, and you say to yourself, well,
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: what would they possibly know about something that they've never done.
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: It's it's a lot like me teaching you how to
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: build a car, and it's saying, well, I'm not a mechanic,
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: nor have I ever designed one. I see you you've
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: actually you've been there. You know you've done that. You've
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: done it many many times over thirty years, and you know.
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: And again that's why I was blown away by having
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: on this podcast, because you know you've you've done I mean,
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna be honest with you, Stephen, half Baked. I
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: remember watching that movie on repeat over and over again,
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: you know, growing up, because it was just absolutely hilarious.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, you've been able to sort of go in and.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: Out of you know, comedy with Half Baked and Scary
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: movie two into Monster, which is more of a of
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: a of a of a of a not only is
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: a drama, but it's also a personal introspective of the
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: of these two women. Who are you know?
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: Who are you know?
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: Literal and figurative monsters? And then you know you Now
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: you're doing your own projects, So it's always good to
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: learn from somebody who's actually has gone out there and
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: done it.
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, thank you.
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: And I have done a lot of different things that
• 56:37
  Speaker 6: a producer now, a director, a writer, uh, cinematographer. It's
• 56:42
  Speaker 6: not always been easy, but it's interesting when you get
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: to uh farther down the road you realize how each
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: of these things informs the other. I'm a better producer
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: because I was a cinematographer. I'm a better director because
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: I'm a writer and a cinematographer. And it's not just
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: the films that are being.
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: Made, I guess.
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: In the last eighteen months, I've been commissioned to write
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: five other major feature film. Has been a very, very
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: busy period for us. We have a TV series that's
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: an advanced stage development and The reason I am now
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: writing so quickly and so efficiently is that I'm borrowing
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: from my other experiences as a producer, as a cinematographer,
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: as a director, and I realize what I need to
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: write and what I don't. I understand what will work
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: best and what works most efficiently, and it's a help.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: So look, if I can help others understand all these
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: things based on my experience, I'm more than happy to
• 57:38
  Speaker 6: impart it to them.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: And you know, Steve, I know we're just about out
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: of time, and I want to again say thank you
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: so much for coming on and imparting your wisdom here
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: for the past hour. And just in closing, where can
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: people find you out online? Give any other social media links?
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: And also you may just to give that seminar link again.
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: Well it's the key one to go to.
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: This links had pretty much everything to do with me
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: as Somebodystudios dot com. You can also find me'm Steven Bernstein,
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: writer director online and there's usually links to our courses
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: or what's going on on my life there Steve Bernstein,
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: Director writer on Instagram as well, and of course I
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: say Somebody Studios dot Com is pretty much available on
• 58:24
  Speaker 6: all social media platforms, so we really hope that people
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: might join us.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: Thanks and everyone.
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: I will link to that in our show notes on
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: the Dave Wolves podcast. It's at Dave Wolves dot com,
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: Twitter you can find me at Dave Underscore Bullets. Stephen Bernstein,
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: I want to say thank you so much for coming on, sir, my.
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: Very great pleasure. Was a great talk. Thank you so much.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: head over to the show notes at any from Welso
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: dot com Forward Slash seven.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: Eighty eight, and if you haven't already, please head over
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: really helps us out a lot.
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: Guys.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Thank you again so much for listening to guys.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 59:22
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• 59:24
  Speaker 1: dot com.